Car Review: 2014 Mini Cooper S

The 2014 Mini Cooper S is now a bit bigger and features some more mature refinements, but it's still every bit as immaturely fun and cute as previous generations.

PHOTO: Chris Balcerak, Driving

The 2014 Mini Cooper S gets a new-look interior, with the speedo moved to its traditional spot above the steering wheel, and an infotainment screen taking its place in the centre of the dashboard.

PHOTO: Chris Balcerak, Driving

The new Cooper S gains a brightly incandescent, fire-engine red start button, but it loses a few of its trademark toggles, including ones that power the windows.

PHOTO: Chris Balcerak, Driving

Under the hood, the 2014 Mini Cooper S is motivated by a turbo-four, 2.0L engine that produces 189 hp and 207 lb.-ft. of torque.

PHOTO: Chris Balcerak, Driving

2014 Mini Cooper S

PHOTO: Chris Balcerak, Driving

2014 Mini Cooper S

PHOTO: Chris Balcerak, Driving

2014 Mini Cooper S

PHOTO: Chris Balcerak, Driving

2014 Mini Cooper S

PHOTO: Chris Balcerak, Driving

2014 Mini Cooper S

PHOTO: Chris Balcerak, Driving

2014 Mini Cooper S

PHOTO: Chris Balcerak, Driving

2014 Mini Cooper S

PHOTO: Chris Balcerak, Driving

2014 Mini Cooper S

PHOTO: Chris Balcerak, Driving

2014 Mini Cooper S

PHOTO: Chris Balcerak, Driving

2014 Mini Cooper S

PHOTO: Chris Balcerak, Driving

Mini's third-gen hot hatch is slightly bigger and more mature, but it's still gushingly cute and ridiculously fun

By David Booth

Originally published: July 25, 2014

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Age is supposed to bring wisdom to our former impetuous selves. And, with said wisdom, one is supposed to put down the follies of youth and act in something approaching a responsible manner. Indeed, maturity is officially purported to be, according to Wikipedia at least, “the ability to respond to the environment in an appropriate manner.”

So, why exactly am I, at the hardly tender age of 56, complete with creaky knees and an inability to have even one mojito without a killer hangover, driving around in such an irresponsible — not to mention a decidedly non-environmentally-friendly — way, grinning like an idiot the entire time.

One could posit that, like so many of my fellow aging Boomers, any semblance of maturity on my part is but a pretense. Or that, despite severe follicular abandonment and an unhealthy preoccupation with retirement savings, I am actually more immature than most.

All might well be true, though not necessarily specific to my current spate of rampant immaturity. That adolescent behavior would have to be blamed on Mini, in this case the tire-shredding, redline-bouncing silliness of the Cooper S model in particular.

The 2014 Mini Cooper S gets a new-look interior, with the speedo moved to its traditional spot above the steering wheel, and an infotainment screen taking its place in the centre of the dashboard.Chris Balcerak, Driving

Much has been written about the Cooper S over the last decade. More will be written in the immediate future as there’s an entire new family of third-generation runabouts hitting these streets this summer and through the rest of the year. New engines will be detailed, interior styling revisions dissected and, in some cases, some concessions to practicality lamented.

Much of which misses the point, because after 13 years and 2,788,644 examples produced, the message behind the Mini remains resolutely the same: Fun. Sometimes that fun is equipping the silly buggers with a perky little turbocharged four-cylinder engine — now displacing 2.0 litres in the Cooper S, up from 1.6L. Other times, it’s just rowing a gearbox so silky smooth, so easily shifted that one remembers why manual transmissions were once preferred over automatics. Even more often, it’s reveling in the comportment of a car that, were it not for the roof over your head, feels like a handy little go-kart, rendering you the God of all apexes.

Even when you’re not giving in to your inner hooligan, the Cooper S is smile-inducing. Cute is a word too bandied about for many hot hatches, but if ever there was a car for which that moniker fit, it is the Mini. The exterior makes Herbie the Love Bug seem frowny, the interior is all lightness and good humour (with just a hint of menace now with the new red start button) and the dials are huge. Every time I see a Mini, my first thought is of my childhood Hot Wheels set all grown up so that my adult self can play along as well.

On the other hand, this singular devotion to four-wheeled joie de vivre has always been part of the Cooper S’s repertoire. So then what’s different about the 2014 experience?

2014 Mini Cooper SChris Balcerak, Driving

Well, the first thing you might notice, especially if a previous first-gen version is handy, is that the new version is noticeably larger. The specific numbers are 114 millimetres longer, 44-mm wider and seven mils taller, none of which will render the Cooper S family sedan sized, but the change seriously challenges the concept of Mini-ness. Some have decried the company’s relentless march towards maximum-ness. I’ll simply state that if Mini stops here, they will have not exceeded their mandate. But if the supersizing continues, the entire brand name will become somewhat farcical.

According to insiders, the larger body is the result of simple convenience. The Mini is the first product in BMW’s portfolio that will be built off the new UKL platform (that will also house upcoming front-wheel-drive BMW models) and this is reputedly the smallest the universal platform can go. No matter, there are practical advantages, namely that there’s more front seat legroom (the Cooper S now able to accommodate NBA inseams), more rear seat room (though ingress/egress is no better), and a smidgen more trunk space (211 litres versus 160 L). If you’re trying to convince yourself that you’re buying a Mini for practical reasons, the enhanced size may be your rationalization.

The third-generation’s interior may also be all-new — the speedo is moved to its traditional spot above the steering wheel, an infotainment screen takes its place in the centre of the dashboard — but the feel is largely the same; small, round and cheery. One lamentable loss: while the 2014 gains a brightly incandescent, fire-engine red start button, it loses a few of its trademark toggles. The power windows, for instance, are now operated via traditional buttons on each door. I miss those little chrome toggles and their protective little gates. Sometimes, maturity sucks.

The new Cooper S gains a brightly incandescent, fire-engine red start button, but it loses a few of its trademark toggles, including ones that power the windows.Chris Balcerak, Driving

As for the new engine, despite the boost in displacement to 2.0L, it actually feels no more powerful than the 1.6L it replaces. That said, it doesn’t need to, the 189-horsepower engine is enough to get the Cooper S — and the overgrown teenager behind the wheel — into serious trouble. The now bigger four is torquey, smooth and still makes delicious vroom noises.

That said, as I stated in my review of the base Mini, it would have been quite adventuresome —in keeping with the Mini motif, methinks — if Mini had chosen to go with a higher performance version of the three-cylinder, 1.5-litre engine that powers the entry-level Cooper. I’ve tested BMW’s version of this engine and it is but nine horsepower and 12 pound-feet off the 2.0-litre’s output and sounds far rortier thanks to its unique three-piston format. Besides, turbo-boosting the 1.5L engine even more assiduously rather than simply making the engine larger would seem more in keeping with the Mini maxim.

Despite this worry that Mini is, well, losing its Mini-ness, the new Cooper S ticks off all the same boxes for which the previous generations have been adored. It’s scandalously fun, terminally cute and, if the road be twisty and narrow enough, a sports car nonpareil. That it’s now a tad more mature should not be held against it. Besides, the 2014 Cooper S is almost $3,500 cheaper than the previous generation, which means more money for us to pump up our RRSPs.